@kartcon wrote:
Living in Florida, where today is was almost 80F and 5 days ago it was in the 40’s, has certainly complicated my HVAC automations. First, some physical background info. The house is 3500 sq/Ft open concept two story with a large glass lanai. The house is two zone heat pump and the lanai is heat/cool mini split. The lanai lets in lots of sun and some radiant heat. The windows are well insulated so that room adds warmth to the entire house year round. Three big fans circulate the main level. Thermostats are Z-wave Heat/Cool/Auto fully programmable with HA, but no built in schedules.
My automations split each day into 4 segments, Morning, Daytime, Evening and Sleeping. We want the house to be a bit cooler for sleeping, warmer as we wake up, use minimum energy during the daytime, then be comfortable during the evening.
I have coded all these segments with desired Set Points using input numbers. My issue isn’t with the coding but rather how to get the logic to work so that the house remains comfortable through each phase, regardless of ambient conditions. For example:
Today was unseasonably warm and my automations toggled from Heat to Cooling as I expected, however my Daytime set point value which was fine for Heating was obviously too cold a value for Cooling mode. Wife was wearing a sweater and not looking happy. :<( I experimented with the idea of using outside temps to primarily determine Heat/Cool mode but that also wasn’t consistent.
Todays average outside temp 79F
Daytime set point was 77F
Late morning HVAC switched to Cool. By mid afternoon house was 77F but FELT cold due to outside temps of 79-80F. By late afternoon even I was cold and I overrode the automation and turned off cooling.
Last week when it was cooler 77F was good number and house felt comfortably warm with outside temps in the mid 40s.So I was wondering how other folks managed their heating/cooling automations. Again, I can take care of the coding, I am looking for suggestions on how to make the current mode and set point a reasonable value based on both inside and outside conditions. Maybe a completely different approach. Or should I simply define Min and Max comfort values and work the automations to maintain that value? Yes this would double my input number entries and coding but if it solves the problem, I don’t care.
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